


Murphy’s First Law

by Fountain_pen



Series: The Murphy Series [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-06-20 08:36:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15530391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fountain_pen/pseuds/Fountain_pen
Summary: Nothing is easy as it looksNatasha is rarely impulsive. Succumbing to desire does not always translate to irrationalism. But to do it with haste, especially in her line of work, is unwise. But Bruce has always been an exception. He pulls at her emotions like a treasure hunt, uncovering desires even she had not known. Or maybe she’s slipping....Sam wasn’t wrong. It’s awkward, uneasy and maybe it should be ugly, menace and misunderstanding fighting for dominance. But ultimately underneath the uneasiness lies desire neither is too proud to ignore, so they lean into each other, tired, drawing strength, offering solace.





	1. Chapter 1

Natasha is rarely impulsive. Succumbing to desire does not always translate to irrationalism. But to do it with haste, especially in her line of work, is unwise. But Bruce has always been an exception. He pulls at her emotions like a treasure hunt, uncovering desires even she had not known. Or maybe she’s slipping - she really wants to ruffle his hair.

He’s conked out in his lab, his head pillowed on his arm. His other arm is stretched out across the table to reveal a hand loosely holding a stylus. She thinks it must be an untold qualification for geniuses to forget the mortal necessities of sleep and food. She had learned in her not so favourite mission in Stark Industries that the CEO turned Avenger had also been terrible at taking care of himself. 

At least, Bruce smells like he’s taken a shower. 

She’s sitting on the stool across from Bruce, giving her a perfect view of his thick, curls. The desk he’s sleeping on is the only obstruction between them. She drops her eyes down to push the urge down. Her eyes land on the basket full of calorie bar wrappers, probably his only source of nutrition for at least two days.

She doesn’t want to wake him, sleep is a privilege neither of them frequently enjoy. But she also wants to send him to bed, the desk must not be a good substitute. She really should focus more on her bleeding gash. The stitches were pulled and now there is a red blotch in her white shirt. She curses softly when there is the hot white shock of pain and regrets immediately when Bruce stirs awake. 

His eyes widen at her presence but soon softens as he offers her a shy smile. “Hey, just come back?” The red probably wasn’t lost to his eyes. His smile falls and doesn’t wait for her answer as he walks to the back of his lab, presumably to bring his impressively extensive medical kit. It was her original intent - the medical kit that was so much better than the one under her kitchen cabinet, and maybe some steady hands. But instead she’d been mesmerized by his thick curves, how peaceful he had looked for once. 

He’s hovering over her, his hot hand on her waist and kneeling on one leg, only giving her a better view of his hair and she thinks: fuck it. 

She spreads her finger into his curls. It’s soft, thick and bouncy. She revels in it but doesn’t miss the momentary halt and the creeping blush. He continues his work with more vigorous focus. She smiles at how gentle he still remains to be.

He gets up when his satisfied with his work and hashes out medical instructions he already knows that Natasha will most definitely ignore. She pushes her hand back into his hair, softly petting it. “Good Bruce.” Bruce splutters. She smirks harder. 


	2. Chapter 2

It catches her off guard. When his eyes sparkle, when he smiles like the world isn’t weighing him down anymore, mesmerized by whatever groundbreaking scientific discovery he is making, albeit it always lasting only a short window of time.

 

* * *

 

One day, on a balcony, on a shared sunset. When the sun relinquishes its last ray of sun to the canvas of the sky, painting it a glorious magma red, when Bruce has his back to the sunset, when she only has the silhouette of Bruce to herself, she feels it - his warmth, the same as his brilliant smiles, the same as the sunset, directed towards her.

It sears her. A stupefying wonder. 

It’s perhaps then she realizes. A serendipity. Or she’s just been too blind to realize.

But it’s a zemblanity as much as it’s a serendipity.

A confirmation of a notion that had been plaguing her mind, a thought she’d been trying to bury. There’s a fundamental difference, while sharing so many of the same qualities, his freedom, his normalcy, his roots had been stripped away, hers had never existed. Warmth can’t be produced without a fire to begin with.

Like a dam releasing all it’s pent up water and her being their to let it wash her, it leaves her hollow and cold. She misses Bruce, despite him being there. She wants to see his face, his eyes, his smile. She wants to wave the thought away and she’s looking for Bruce. It’s paralyzing. 

She extends her hand, taking a firm hold of his hand, intends to pull him to her. But he pulls at hers, brings it to his mouth to kiss. It feels like a reprieve but she doesn’t want his gentleness. 

She grabs at his henley with her other hand and swivels him so that her back is to the sun. And she lets herself bask in the warmth, not of the sun’s but of Bruce’s. She just stares up at him, memorizing his features, hoping she could keep a part of him, and he lets her.

One day when she finds the right words she'll tell him. One day, if she can return the same warmth, she'll do so until it kills her.

 

* * *

 

Bruce always gets sleepy after. She likes to tease him, ruffling his hair, calling him “sleepy Bruce”. He groans into the pillow.

Truth is, she just likes to spread her fingers against his hair. She likes the way he fights sleep, eyes fluttering, so he can continue looking into her eyes.

He squirms to close the distance between them, enough so that their legs twine, enough to keep their eye contact.

She’s an early riser, and a light sleeper by nature, or by long term conditioning. It kept, no keeps her alive, another skill set for survival. But sometimes, she uses it as a privilege to burn Bruce’s features into her memory, idly petting his hair. Bruce is like that, gives meaning to her amass of skills developed for killing. Living instead of surviving. 

His eyes flutter open, sleepy but sated, and smiles as their eyes meet. He stretches his arms by wrapping her in it, burying himself to her. Her hand is still lost in his hair.

“I knew you were with me for my hair.” His voice is throaty and teasing.

“Smart Bruce.”

He tries to separate from her, presumably to look at her in exasperation but she pushes his head back into her, hand still spread across his curls. He releases an exasperated huff instead and she can feel his lips curve up against her neck.

She’s been thinking for the right words, one that she is okay to admit. “Cafuné” she whispers.

 

* * *

 

The eggs are sizzling just right. Bruce gives it another minute before dishing it out. In the meantime, he pulls out his phone to find what Cafuné means: 

_Running your fingers through your lover's hair._

He blinks at the screen, unaware his lips are forming an irrepressible grin. He’ll wait until she gets out of the shower.

Of course, their detector finds another Hydra base. It’s somewhere cold - Tony advises him to bring extra blankets.  

It’s fine. He’ll wait until this ends.

 

Nothing is easy as it looks.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stark finds him like this; chuckling into his mug, somehow touched and humored and oddly giddy the whole day.

“Backpfeifengesicht.” She mutters under her breath as she turns the television off on Ross’s face, who had been passionately informing the general public of the volatility of the Hulk.

Bruce muses at how different languages hid within them little gems of words that didn’t exist in other languages. Natasha, knowing an unfathomable amount of languages, is surely taking advantage of it. It becomes a game for Bruce to guess which language she is speaking in when she absentmindedly leaves tokens of words.

It doesn’t take him long to realize she never does in front of others, perhaps a veil to disguise her identity. To let him see makes him feel humbled, like given a token of trust. He isn’t sure whether the decision is a conscious one but he’d still like to keep the token. 

When Bruce can fathom spelling, or recall her impeccable pronunciation, he looks it up. He soon learns to just ask Jarvis once Natasha is out. Why he can’t just ask Natasha is an inquiry he's been having. Perhaps he’d like her to let herself be her. Perhaps he's afraid that once Natasha noticed that she’d let herself slip, she’d recoil away from him.

Jarvis puts it up on his work screen: “Backpfeifengesicht - a face that invites slapping.”  Stark finds him like this; chuckling into his mug, somehow touched and humored and oddly giddy the whole day.

* * *

 

They’re not taking it lightly but they’re playing with the concept of it, a relationship, of a thing, see if they want it.

They are not the dating type, although they have had their share of wandering around, and they are most definitely not the marrying type. Tony, despite or because of all his outwardly nonchalance to commitment and family, Bruce thinks, will marry Pepper.

Thus the relationship between the two of them isn’t fancy restaurants or romantic nights. It’s Bruce making a breakfast for two. It’s Natasha bothering to eat breakfast. It’s leaving a side of the bed empty.

Bruce knows he’s fucked when frying way too many eggs for one becomes a routine, when eating breakfast alone suddenly becomes lonely.

He’s known he’s been fucked for a while. Their boundary has been shifting. It used to be an invitation - “leave it or take it but I’d like it if you’d take it”. Recently, it’s become a push and pull. Which is fine when it’s a “go to bed, you haven’t slept in the past 40 hours” or “go to the infirmary, you’ll bleed to death” but not so much when it comes to the Other Guy. Perhaps, what scares him the most is that he hadn’t realized, or minded, that the boundary was shifting at all.  

He vaguely wonders if trust and knowledge could be mutually exclusive. How she knows of, experienced, the Hulk’s destructive force yet somehow wants to harness that strength.  

* * *

 

He looks at Natasha and remembers marveling at the beauty of a shard of glass. It had reflected against the sun, mirroring it’s brilliance through the fluid display of hues. It altered by the slight rotation of his hand, endlessly changing forms and shades. It was a piece from a wine bottle Brian had thrown, one that Bruce had accidently cut himself with. But even when a boy is left in a hay of despair, there is a needle of escape. There has to be. Something to make the situation bearable - he had found the shard. Beautiful, he had thought.  

He thinks it’s not a very different branch of an emotion, perhaps not sharing the same root but the same conclusion. It should be ugly, something that has seen, endured that much ugliness of the world, teared without consideration, forged to be a weapon but she’s not. She’s been broken, affected, maybe, but she’s beautiful.

She’s strong, weary and unyielding. Cap is also unyielding but not like Nat; he pushes through, never giving up. He rises from the ashes, like a goddamn phoenix. Nat is a flux - she bends, deforms, reforms, pierces through - she’s affected but never truly changing.   

* * *

 

The thought is revisited as the setting sun reflects against the glass of water.

He likes the sunset but he’d rather let it set against his shoulders, rather see her watching the sunset. Let her waves wash over him.

He watches her watching him and there’s something surprisingly tender about it. She takes a hold of his hands and it’s firm and gentle. It’s then he realizes that maybe he’d got it all wrong. He’s not awed by her push, her determination but how ruthless yet gentle she can be. How that gentleness is directed towards him. How the calm of the ocean can be more sublime than crashing waves.

He pulls her hand to his mouth, kisses it - he can’t help it. She swivels him and there isn’t much physical contact, only her hand grabbing at his henley, the meeting of the eyes. But it’s feels more intimate than anything else they’ve done. He holds the sensation dear into himself - he fights sleep to do so.   

* * *

 

The word manhandling is a misnomer; Natasha’s so much better at it than him and having lost the battle of manhandling, his face is buried in the crook of her neck, hair within her hands - he doesn’t really have complaints. “Cafuné” she whispers into his ears. She says it to him, and it’s not a mistake - it’s her letting him hear it.   

The eggs are sizzling just right. He’s making it for two and smiling like an idiot at his phone that defines the token Natasha drops today - and well maybe it isn’t as intimidating.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my version of them having "their share of wondering around": https://archiveofourown.org/works/15535743


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam wasn’t wrong. It’s awkward, uneasy and maybe it should be ugly, menace and misunderstanding fighting for dominance. But ultimately underneath the uneasiness lies desire neither is too proud to ignore, so they lean into each other, tired, drawing strength, offering solace.

It goes down to utter shit.  

He’d been happy, drunkenly so. Being in a team, being a scientist, being with Natasha, being human. He thought he could control the Hulk, play above the laws of science and men and thought he could..with the Hulk, with Natasha, with the team.. and he killed people, created another monster. Then he thought of running, let that destruction unfold and then..

That is the question isn’t it? His memory is fucked, the walk down memory lane bumpy. He wants to lash out, somehow - maybe not in the way it sounds, maybe exactly the way it sounds. But he’s awakened to another global, no galactic threat. It’s all seems insignificant. 

There is an irony in finding himself release a smirk looking at Ross, at what perhaps is a painful reminder of his past. How even that seems paltry.

Everything must be.

Then that voice, both calm and confident, slices Ross’ and grabs at his lungs. He forgets to breathe.

It’s when her green orbs clash with his, he’s brutally reminded of his humanity, the want, the greed, the soft insistent tug at his heart. Seeking her is more natural than breathing.

 

* * *

 

Her impulse is to not act on impulse - to assess, plan then act, a skill that has been sowed by the Red Room and later redirected for the better.

Back when things were quieter, when they had melted their untold promises in tentative glances and soft hand brushes, she had given into desire and ruffled his hair. She wishes she could do the same, knows she’s pushed that down a ledge two years ago. But her mouth betrays her, softly drops his name without permission. It’s a swirl of uncharacteristic haste and some disbelief, maybe relief.

Disarmed, just by his presence and she hates it, revels in it, that he can still do this to her.

Sometimes one learns from instincts, when the mind wavers but the heart doesn’t, that moving on and leaving behind isn’t all concordant.

It feels like eons before he replies, with some hesitation and approval. And her lips form a smile. She keeps them closed, imprisoning within her all that are threatening to spill.

 

* * *

 

They take time for a brief suit up, although it’s more of a clean up in their current state. Bruce has slinked away in to one of the spare rooms to take a shower, and get a change of clothes and well she’s some spare time. When she walks in without much of a plan in mind, Bruce sits on a small bed, cleaned and a little dazed, having a staring contest with a cookie.

He doesn’t make any acknowledgement but he knows she’s there. Sometimes Bruce breathes as if it’s a piss poor substitute for crying - somehow he’s mastered it to a form of art. He breathes in a lungfull, not without effort, then releases in a singular form, unbroken but shaky like he’s wobbling, unyielding regardless. It’s barely noticeable, like a beating heart.

He doesn’t look up at her when she comes closer, just pushes her to stand in between his legs. Then simply drops his hands away and then his head onto her stomach.

Sam wasn’t wrong. It’s awkward, uneasy and maybe it should be ugly, menace and misunderstanding fighting for dominance. But ultimately underneath the uneasiness lies desire neither is too proud to ignore, so they lean into each other, tired, drawing strength, offering solace. They’re letting the silence do the talking, slowly unwinding, the tension melting, breathes mingling and harmonizing.

He hadn’t bothered to spare her feelings and she’s an expert at weaving scraps of information. It’d burned down to the following: there’s a new cosmic threat, he hasn’t returned to himself for two years.

“Sorry.” It’s croaky and flat. There isn’t much else she can offer.

“Are you?” He’s calling on her. It used to be his charm, frankly still is.  

“Backpfeifengesicht” he mumbles, after some time, hot breath against her belly. He looks up, and repeats, somewhat like a petulant child. And somehow that let’s her release a huffed laugh.

“We should talk” she continues, “Maybe fuck, but the world has a perpetual propensity to blow up.”

He laughs this time and reaches behind, his nose pressing into her stomach. He takes one final breath before leaning away. There's a soft crunch and a few crumbs earth the floor, Bruce holds a cookie pieced in half. He holds one at each hand, looks down at it, contemplating and offers one.

“Cookie?” says his hand, his eyes say something else and without fail she hears the silence, and the normalcy of this shouldn’t make her laugh, relieve her, but it does and they’re headed towards a potential universal crisis so she thinks, she can take this. No, that’s not right. She wants to. Saving the world and taking this, with Bruce, isn’t all mutually exclusive.

 

* * *

 

Life has always been a compromise between reality and desire and she’d been deadening her desire like it was what fueled reality to turn its gears. They both have. It’s maybe one of those things that come to a light when the world is at darkness: that this was utter bull.

She wants this and there’s no point of denying it. It’s not the right time. It’s not the right place. But that’s not the point.

She takes the cookie, “Let’s go be a hero.”

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing is as easy as it looks


End file.
